Anthony DiNozzo:A Work in Progress
by binkeybella
Summary: Abby mentioned in the 'Sins of the Father' episode that everyone thought Tony was exaggerating about what a jerk his father was. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Yet another take on Tony's 'being forgotten' at the Maui Hilton, and its aftershocks, and a venture into his unknown time at Rhode Island Military Academy. PRE-GIBBS/NCIS


**This came to me while I was vacuuming. Further proof that, like Gibbs and Tony, I have no life outside of NCIS. Not beta'd. I guess it's sort of long, didn't seem right to split it up.**

Looking back on it, twelve year old Tony couldn't believe he had been so anxious to go to Maui on this year's tropical vacation, but he'd been away at boarding school and hadn't seen his father for months, and as he'd heard one of his cranky aunts say many times, absence makes the heart grow fonder. He'd never known what that meant until now, but if it turned out to be true, he and his father would wind up extremely fond of each other in years to come.

What he thought might finally be a great chance to hang out and bond with his dad had turned into a disaster of major proportions, for Tony that is, when a tall and shapely brunette had caught his father's eye in the hotel lobby. They were just checking in after the long flight from Los Angeles, where his father had had yet another business partner to meet with, and she swept in beside them, bell hop on her heels. She smelled delicious, even to Tony's young olfactory senses, and it was with a sharp pang he realized why – she was wearing Chanel No. 5, his mother's favorite perfume.

His father had of course been immediately drawn to her, and gifted her with his most charming and seductive smile. She smiled back, perfect white teeth set in a classically beautiful face, and the rest was history. DiNozzo Senior had spent the rest of their vacation wooing and ultimately winning the heart of what turned out to be the daughter of a shipping magnate. They were smitten with each other, and Tony once again was ordered to be invisible for the time being, and find some way to entertain himself for the duration. If there was a problem, his father assured him, he would be right in the hotel; Tony only needed to tell one of the staff members and they would find him.

Tony knew that was code for ''_Don't bother me unless you're gushing or vomiting blood"._

Well, it was a big hotel with plenty of things to do besides enjoy the gorgeous beach, though Tony did plenty of that, combing for exotic shells while his skin browned and freckles popped. When he tired of the sun, he went to his room and watched movies on demand and ordered whatever sounded good to him from room service. In between those two pastimes, he could be found in either the hotel rec room playing video games, with an occasional game of pool, or in the gym with a basketball, practicing jump shots. All in all, he was almost too busy to really think about what his father had done to him by deserting him for what Tony already assumed to be Stepmother #2. Almost. He had planned on doing all of those things and more with his father this time out, having been promised many times over that it was a get-away just for the two of them. Tony had wanted to believe it, so he had. Almost. But not so deeply that he was shocked to find himself on his own yet again.

Three days had passed and he hadn't seen or even heard from his father, and he wasn't clueless enough not to notice the extra attention he had started to garnish from the hotel staff, suspicious of Senior's conspicuous absence, but unwilling to risk their posh jobs for a kid who seemed to be making out just fine on his own. He wasn't the first or last kid to have to fend for himself at the resort hotel, one reason why it was so often utilized by people like DiNozzo Senior. They were under the mistaken impression that because they were still under the same roof as their kid, no harm would come to their child while they partied and schmoozed and did who knew what else while out from under parental responsibilities.

But this was not the first time Tony had been left to fend for himself, and he had trained himself to read strangers and their intentions; even his father's friends got carefully scrutinized, sometimes more so if they seemed at all 'weird' to the young boy. He knew his father was not the best judge of character, though the man swore he could read people like children's books. The truth was, he could mostly just read what their net worth was and whether they could be convinced to part with any of it for his never-ending 'projects'. Any other personality traits, including being a little too interested in little boys, were either not picked up on or maybe just ignored, the latter being something that constantly niggled in the back of Tony's mind, so he had learned to investigate and read people at an early age, not always so much out of curiosity, but out of self-preservation. If they seemed too creepy to him, he found other places he had to be, and felt no compunction in embarrassing his father in front of them by pointedly brushing them off with a disgusted scowl. He had been left to the mercy of strangers so many times that it had become so ingrained in him he did it now without thinking, staying well away from anyone, male or female, who gave him bad vibes.

After the fourth day, Tony had begun to wonder if his father was even still alive, much less still within the confines of the resort, being wise enough to understand that while he had developed an acute sense of people's personalities and agendas, his father was still woefully, perhaps blissfully, unable to sort them out. SAnd maybe Tony had watched way too many movies in his young life, but he knew what sort of damage a woman could do when she put her mind to it, and wasn't entirely certain that Chanel #5 wasn't a black widow type, and he would be notified by the front desk concierge to please meet him in the lobby to go with the nice police officers to help identify the body. He finally asked a trusted cook he had made friends with if perhaps the man had seen his father in the luxury dining area or prepared any meals sent to him by room service, and indeed, he had prepared several meals for Senior DiNozzo and his woman friend the past few days, but none since yesterday morning. The chef had just assumed that at least the DiNozzos had left the resort, and was surprised when he saw Tony slip into the back kitchen.

The news gave Tony a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. If his father and his 'woman friend' were still together, they would still be ordering meals. If they had had a parting of the ways, or she had simply had to leave, his father would have come back to their room by now. What the heck was going on? Should he admit to the hotel staff that his father had been AWOL from parenting the entire time they'd been at the hotel and left Tony to his own devices? If he did, would they just chalk it up to the typical behavior of the jet-setters who brought boatloads of cash to their coffers, or would they call the police and have Tony taken away from his father? Tony wasn't under any illusion anymore that his father wasn't a poor excuse for a parent, but he loved the man, and the man was all the family that he had that would acknowledge his existence, and how could survive if he was sent away to live with someone who didn't know him, and perhaps _several _someones once they found out what a precocious child he was? But what if his father was in danger, or even lying _dying _somewhere waiting, praying for someone to find him? How could he _not _tell someone?

The concerned chef watched with sympathy and then alarm as a myriad of emotions swept across Tony's face while the boy's mind rushed with all sorts of scenarios, none of them ending pleasantly.

"I'll tell you what." he told his young guest, breaking Tony out of his racing thoughts. "How about if you go up to your room and wait to hear from me. I will send a meal up to you by room service and ask some of my staff friends about your father. I will be discreet, Anthony. If it turns out we think your father is in some sort of trouble, we'll take the necessary actions. If not, I'll make sure he contacts you himself."

Tony nodded dumbly, still shocked that he had been so blind as to trust his father to have his best interest at heart even a little bit. Either way, he wasn't sure he wanted to know where the man was. If he wasn't dead, or gravely injured, it meant that he had completely ignored his son for almost five entire days without ever contacting him to ask about his health or welfare, or if he was even still breathing. Not in all his movies, or boarding school horror stories, had he heard of anyone's father doing such a neglectful thing. If he hadn't been so needy, or whiny, or loud or any of the other things his father was always telling him he was, then maybe his father would have wanted to spend more time with him. He'd been told over and over again during his life what a fine and generous man his father was, and that he should do more to earn his respect. If he'd been a good son, his father wouldn't have felt the need to spend their vacation with someone he had just met at the resort. He deserved to be neglected, he wasn't any fun to be around.

"Go, Anthony. Someone will contact you. It will be alright, I'm sure."

Tony startled, his thoughts careening and colliding again, as he felt the chef's gentle hand on his shoulder. He headed to the elevators, back to his room, wanting to believe what the helpful cook had assured him, but down deep in his gut, which he trusted way more than people, he felt foreboding that bordered on doom. Suddenly boarding school looked like a sweet, sinful piece of chocolate torte, instead of the ages old fruitcake he had always thought it to be and he wished with everything he had that he was still back in that dreary, souless place instead of one of the most gorgeous resorts in the world. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put his head in his hands and cried, deep heart-rending sobs drawing up from the depths of his very core.

And in the end, when he had cried himself out and come to a sort of terms with what was happening, he realized that maybe perhaps it wasn't so much that he was a bad person, or disrespectful son, or any other unsavory label he had had placed on him or had placed on himself throughout his life – maybe it was a lot to do with his father, too, and the kind of person he was, and even though Tony was old enough now and wise beyond his years to unravel that his father was far from perfect, he still needed the man, and desperately so. Which made him fall into yet another crying jag as he realized it didn't _matter _how desperately he needed the man, even _deserved _to have a decent, _real _father – Anthony DiNozzo Senior was who he was, and no amount of crying or begging or desperation was going to turn him into something he wasn't, make him be something he wasn't capable, or even willing, to be.

So he stopped crying eventually, and forced himself to gain control, and to convince himself that things were going to be the way they were going to be, regardless of what he wanted, so he'd damned well better suck it up and get used to it. Rinsing his blotchy, swollen face in the bathroom sink, he swore to himself then and there to never again give anyone else the power to hurt him and yank his strings like only his father could. Damage had been done, and lots of it, but from now on, whatever happened to him,on an emotional level, at least, happened on his terms. That was Antony DiNozzo Junior's new maxim, and if he had to have it tattooed on the back of his hand to remember it, then so be it.

He flopped back down on the suite's lush sofa and grabbed up the tv remote, clicking on to the classic movie channel he knew would be playing something worthwhile, and settled in to wait to hear from his father, or maybe the police. Two hours later, the phone rang. An hour after that, and Tony was in a hotel taxi being driven to the airport to catch a plane headed to the mainland. No one had told him anything other than that his father was perfectly safe and would be back at their Long Island estate in a week or so, and that everything was taken care of. And no one told him that he himself wasn't going back to Long Island, but instead was being sent to Rhode Island to be enlisted into an elite military academy. When he walked off the plane into the airport, there was a woman in a military uniform waiting at the end of the terminal, and he paid her no mind until she called out his name, and he turned around to look at her thinking she was perhaps a friend of his father's. But why would his father know a woman in the military, and why would she be waiting for Tony? He felt panic reign in his gut again. They had told him his father was fine, that he was...well, just that he was fine, and he believed them.

"It's okay, Anthony, I'm here to pick you up, your father has arranged everything."

"He...has? What...what exactly has he...arranged?"

Tony's thoughts were running amok. He knew his father was a selfish bastard, but Jesus God, what had the man agreed to now?

"You're enlistment in RIMA. I'm here to take you there now."

"My...enlistment? In...RIMA?" Tony felt his breath starting to catch, starting to possibly leave his lungs altogether, and he had to drop his carry – on and grab the nearest stationary object as he felt his head swoon.

She gave him an impatient, puzzled look and wondered if he was just being dramatic.

"Surely you knew you wouldn't have time to go home before heading to RIMA, the semester has already started, two days ago. Your mother mother seems to know the right people there, so you lucked out and they're letting you start late."

"My...my mother?"

"Anthony, are you alright? I know the flight has been very long for you, but I assumed you slept a good part of the way."

Slept? How could he have possibly slept not knowing where in on the face of the planet his father was?

"I...no, I didn't, look, I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me who you are and what's going on!" he threatened, suddenly all too aware that things were even worse than he thought they could get and remembering his vow to himself that he needed to have some sort of power in his crazy life.

Her face softened as she realized he was truly clueless as to what was happening to him and was only trying to gain some measure of control over the situation. He wasn't the first cadet she had known who had been forced to attend the academy by a parent or guardian, but he was the first she'd met whose parents had been cruel enough to not even inform their son where he was being sent off to. Maybe if they were that remorseless, the kid was better off under the auspices of the academy. She'd have to keep a special eye on him, even though it was against protocol to pick favorites.

"RIMA stands for Rhode Island Military Academy, it's a private prep school, it's a lot like your boarding school only, well, it's military, you wear a uniform and do things like the regular military does. It sounds to me like your parents didn't tell you where you were going, but honestly, Anthony, I think you might like it. I know it sounds weird, but it may give you some control in your life. It's not all uniforms and drilling, there are lots of other things you can do, just like high school. It's just a lot more disciplined."

He stared at her until she felt he might be seeing snakes writhing out of her head, and she was at a loss for what else to do to help him, but their car was waiting to take them to the academy, and he was behind with his classes already. They spent another minute looking at each other until she realized he was sizing her up, reading her body language and trying to decide if he could, or should, trust her, and she wished to God she had just sent her assistant to pick him up instead of trying to please score points with her boss who somehow knew this kid's mother.

"Okay." he finally said, reaching to pick up his carry-on bag with shaking hand. "But if it's not what you say it is, if it's not something I can stand and makes me want to hurt somebody, besides my father, I will find a way to leave, and you won't see me again."

She took a deep breath, hoping she knew what she was doing or a lot of people were going to be in a lot of trouble. The mossy green eyes that held hers spoke of willingness to trust her, but they also spoke of betrayal and pain and determination on a level she could only begin to imagine. She had no doubt he would make their lives miserable if he found out she too had lied to him and betrayed his trust.

"And before we go, tell me where my 'mother' was calling from."

"I'm not sure, Anthony, she spoke to my superior officer, not to me. But I promise you I'll do everything I can to make your time at the academy at least bearable if not enjoyable. I'm not a mover and shaker there yet, but I have some favors coming to me from the ones that are."

"Okay, but first I need to see your ID, and to call my father before I even consider getting in the car with you."

"Anthony, I _swear _I'm from where I _say _I am!"

"You can swear all you _want, _maam, but I need to hear it from my father before I go with you. Otherwise, I spend the day at the airport until I can figure out how to get a flight home to Long Island."

Well, she couldn't blame the kid, there was no way she'd ever just get in a car with a stranger without knowing all the facts, either. And the look on his face told her she would get his father on the horn or go back to the academy empty – handed. She certainly admired the boy's grit.

"Fine. Let me find a place where we can call the Academy, have them get in touch with him, and have him call you. But you have to come with me, I can't just leave you alone in the airport."

"Fine. Let's go find a phone."

Two hours later, an annoyed DiNozzo Senior phoned the security green room and asked to speak with his son. Tony waited to hear his dad's voice, then waited to hear his explanation, which not surprisingly to Tony, was not forth-coming. Senior simply instructed his only child to go with the nice military academy woman and he would be in touch with Tony in the near future, and not to give anyone a hard time there, that it would be a good experience for him. He'd even had the unmitigated gall to add that 'maybe it would make a _man _out of him'. Tony bit back a noise that erupted in the back of his throat that he was pretty sure would have come out as a hysterical cackle, and hung up on the man, then turned to his escort.

"I don't even know your name, maam." he told her quietly, working to tamp down the raging frenzy in his solar plexus. This was happening whether he liked it or not, and it would be easier, at least for now, to go with the flow. If he decided he needed to bolt at a later date, he needed a plan and the resources to carry it out, neither of which he had right now.

"Cheryl. Lt. Cheryl Dennis."

"Nice to meet you, Cheryl. Come on. Let's get this over with."

_**ONE WEEK LATER**_

Cadet Anthony DiNozzo needed to hit something. He didn't care what, he just needed to hit it hard. Coming back from the mess hall, he had found a message on his dormitory door that he needed to report to Lt. Dennis, the woman who had escorted his rather unwilling body to the Academy a week before. When he'd walked into her office, she'd smiled and given him a registered envelope, post stamped Zurich, Switzerland and in his father's hand-writing. True to her word, Cheryl had gone above and beyond her job in making Tony's first week there something that he could sink his teeth into and find some purpose in the disciplined atmosphere there. Indeed he had, and was even starting to think he might thrive there contrary to what his brain had first told him at the airport.

He liked the boundaries imposed on him, liked knowing exactly what was expected of him and the exact consequences of when he went outside his given boundaries. He liked someone else being responsible, liked knowing when he could eat and sleep, and having the ritual of military drills and the orderliness of it all. He never would have thought it, but he found it comforting, and he actually had more freedom here than he had ever had in the boarding schools he'd attended. Already he had joined a debate club and the Academy chorus, and was trying out for the basketball team tomorrow. His regular school courses were more up to his quotient of intelligence than boarding school, and he was going to be tested to see if he could take coursework beyond his age level.

He was happy there, at least for now, and if for one minute his father had changed his idiot mind and had decided to yank him out of there and toss him somewhere else, he swore to himself he would find a way to get to the man and shoot him through the eye. But it wasn't a letter pulling him out of the academy, indeed, the man was still whole-heartedly endorsing Tony's staying put at the place indefinitely, which the young man would be perfectly happy to if it kept him from having to be at the mercy of a man who was so obviously and totally disinterested in being any sort of a useful father to him. Better the man not be in his life at all for now than to be constantly screwing it up.

It was an backhanded explanation for what had happened in Maui, with a check enclosed for any expenses he might have outside of academy life. According to the letter, he would receive one every month, and to set up a checking account of some sort for them. Tony didn't even know if such a thing was allowed, and Christ, he was being _bribed _to stay the hell out of his father's hair so he could just get on with his life, a life that now included a new wife and the money behind her to keep his precious business 'deals' afloat for a long time, or at least until she saw the man's true colors and dumped him for a younger, or at least a less grasping one. Turns out his newest stepmother was not 'into' children, and from what his father had told her about him, had _somehow _gotten the idea that Anthony Junior might be a little too high – maintenance for her. She had 'suggested' RIMA, but Tony read between the lines, knowing that she had basically given her husband -to-be an ultimatum – ditch the kid, or the deal's off. So Anthony Senior did what he had always done best, and looked out for his own best interests in the guise of finding 'a good mother for his good boy'. That is what he had told people about Tony's first step-mother, and Tony nearly vomited on his own shoes when he'd heard his father announcing their engagement at a swank dinner party. God only knew what reason he would use this time around.

The letter went on to explain what had happened, but never apologizing for abandoning Tony in Maui – it turns out his latest 'mom' was determined to get married and honeymoon in Zurich, and it took longer than his father thought to get there, and then he'd gotten drunk at the mini-reception the hotel had thrown for them and...the excuses continued unabated, yet no valid reasons were ever offered. It was as if his father had merely gotten held up in traffic or his flight was canceled and through no fault of his own, was unable to get home in time to eat dinner with his son, so guilt-free was the letter. Tony had crumpled it, cashier's check and all and tossed it in Lt. Dennis' waste basket before storming from her office and heading to the gym to beat up the punching bag. She had retrieved the check after he left and put it in her desk for safe – keeping until he was in a frame of mind to really decide what to do with it.

After that, Tony threw himself into the Academy regime, excelling in their sports, music and English programs, and even just as well with the drill and ceremony aspects. He was often chosen for leading teams on military maneuvers, and he almost always captured the flag and brought in live prisoners.

Cheryl Dennis mentored and kept an eye on him without interference, but she learned early on that Cadet DiNozzo was a force to be reckoned with whom, having been summarily dismissed from his father's life in favor of the fast lane, did the same to his father, and ignored all 'requests' to join Senior, and his latest wife, on holidays.

After a while the checks stopped arriving, and one day Tony received formal documents from their sender's attorney announcing that from then on, all that would be provided for Tony would be the bare essentials, and enough funding to see him through to graduation, after which he was on his own. Well, really no change there, Tony thought with morbid amusement. What stung the most was to read that his father had changed his will in favor of his wife, making her the new beneficiary of his holdings. His step-mother had gotten her wish of editing Senior's only child out of their lives. Tony didn't care if one of them ditched the other the next day and his father changed the will back to having him as the beneficiary; if his father thought so little of him to exchange him lock, stock and barrel for a more than likely May to December romance, then he didn't want his father's filthy money. His short time at the Academy had given him self-worth, confidence and an inner strength that he never knew he could have, and he thanked his wicked step-mother every day to himself for chucking him off there, even though he would never forget nor forgive either of them for the way they sent him there without even telling him. He especially would never forgive his father for the man's selfish, incomprehensible behavior that truly endangered Tony by being left totally and unknowingly adrift by himself at the Maui Hilton. One day he might be able to make light of it, but for now it burned like a brand on his soul, and had done irreparable damage to an already fragile psyche.

Although their chilly relationship thawed somewhat with the abrupt departure by step-mother Chanel, it was several years before Tony actually saw his father and spoke more than a few words to him. It seems the latest Mrs. DiNozzo resented being just one in a long line of Senior's vices, with money-making schemes, expensive booze, and never-ending flirting coming before her. She filed for an acrimonious divorce shortly before Tony's graduation from the Academy, and just in time, as Tony was informed later that his father had been caught making out with one of his fellow Cadet's mothers in a storage closet for the duration of the ceremony. Chalk up one more unforgivable sin on his father's tote board for the great hereafter. Tony himself couldn't be bothered to be upset about it anymore, he had a full ride to Ohio State and a spot on their football team, and guilty as Tony felt sometimes, his father just didn't have a place in his life anymore. He was done with the revolving door of hurt and disappointment the man heaped on him, and he didn't have to take it anymore. One of the coaches at the Academy had mentioned that the young quarterback cadet had pro-ball written all over him, and Tony was hitching his star to that wagon. He didn't need his father's lecturing and griping about his 'really stupid choices' to suck all the fun out of his future. Shaking hands with the man before he boarded his plane back for Long Island, Tony could only guess where and with whom the guy would end up next, but couldn't bring himself to give a damn. He said his goodbyes to his fellow Cadets and Junior classmates, and a special thank you to the now Captain Cheryl Dennis, who tearily watched him leave and made him promise to keep in touch. Tony knew that he would, even if it was just a Christmas card – the woman had watched his six from the moment she'd met him until that very day, and he awkwardly pushed a parting gift into her hand before he climbed into the waiting cab and waved a sad goodbye to her.

She watched him ride off, wishing everything good in the world for him, knowing he had not only found his worth and significance in the bigger picture of life at the Academy, but had made sure that others who struggled like he had found their own. He had become fiercely loyal big brother, little brother, confidant, peace-maker and righteous warrior to many of the cadets there, and the place would be poorer with his leaving until the likes of him came along again. Captain Dennis doubted there was another one out there like Tony, and expected big things of him after academy life after watching him blossom from a tightly – wound, mistrusting bud to a giving and fully open bloom in less than a few months at the Academy, and her heart soared to see him strong and full of completely earned self-confidence. She knew she would miss him the most of all the cadets she had watched and taught through the years, and made her way back to her office with not a little wistfullness. Taking off her cover, she made herself some tea and sat down at her desk to gather her wits after the long day, and smiled down at the neatly wrapped little package in her hand, trying to imagine what it could be.

Tears brimmed her eyes as she peered into the box to see an exquisite pair of diamond stud earrings along with a hand-made, delicately painted dish to store them in. She remembered Tony at the pottery wheel through the years, his long, nimble fingers molding the clay into all manner of objects d'art, and giving them as birthday and Christmas gifts to fellow cadets and faculty members. He had quite the talent for it, but his time was at a premium once he'd started playing football, and the more 'artsy' part of his nature went back into hiding. She took both gifts out of the box, and found a short but heartfelt thank you note in the bottom, telling her how much he had appreciated her help over the years, and that the earrings had been bought with money earned selling his pottery and tutoring cadets.

Biting back a soft sob, she removed her plain faux pearl studs and replaced them with the diamonds, as she thought about the little boy who had literally been abandoned by father without being told by anyone that he wasn't going home but to a military academy. She had seen trepidation on the face of many a new cadet landing at the Academy, but she had never witnessed the utter betrayal and desolation mirrored in the eyes of her newest 'recruit'. As much as she had to admit that the Academy had been a godsend to Anthony DiNozzo Junior, her heart would always wrench at the thought of how he had ended up there and what kind of bastard his father was to have allowed it. Luckily she hadn't had to meet the man today, and wasn't at all surprised the idiot never showed up for his only child's graduation; she would have done something very unlady-like to him. But she knew she'd at least played some part in helping Tony become what he was today, and looked forward to following his new life he had created for himself for as long as she could.


End file.
